Dust if You Must

 

Dust if you must, but wouldn’t it be better
to paint a picture or write a letter,
Bake a cake or plant a seed,
Ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must, but there’s not much time,
With rivers to swim and mountains to climb,
Music to hear and books to read,
Friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must, but the world’s out there,
With the sun in your eyes, the wind in your hair,
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain,
This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must, but bear in mind,
Old age will come and it’s not kind.
And when you go — and go you must —
You yourself will make more dust.

Facebook is good for a lot of things.  This poem came up in my feed a month or so ago and it has stuck with me in a way that simply “sharing” it for my friends to see didn’t satisfy.  It was originally shared by a site called “Secular Buddhism,” who attributed it to a Mrs. Rose Milligan and noted that it was first published on September 15th 1998 in the 21st edition of The Lady (“in continuous publication since 1885 and widely respected as England’s longest running weekly magazine for women”).

There are lots of ways to say “enjoy every moment” and in my book, they’re all worth listening to.

Thanks for looking,

~Jaye